With advances in wireless technology, more and more devices are being developed with wireless local area networking (WiFi) capability. As service providers deliver a variety of services over WiFi, consumers expect great WiFi signal coverage across their (oftentimes many) connected devices throughout their homes. In a wireless local area network, signal coverage is seldom even. For example, when a device uses WiFi, the signals are transmitted over radio waves. Despite advanced features in wireless technology, interferences can happen, which can result in a weak or unreliable wireless connection. For example, the signals received by a wireless device can be negatively impacted by distance from a router or access point, physical obstructions, certain surfaces and materials, appliances that send wireless signals, electrical equipment that may generate interference, other WiFi networks, or other obstacles.
To support some types of services that rely on fast download speeds, a reasonably strong signal may be needed. For example, a consumer's experience of his/her broadband Internet service may be determined by the WiFi performance on a wireless network. Poor WiFi performance may result in symptoms such as intermittent connectivity, unexpected disconnections, delays in connection and data transfer, and slow network speeds. In some examples, the power draw of WiFi enabled devices increases when WiFi signal strength is poor, which can lead to inefficient battery power usage. To ensure that a strong signal needed to support online or wireless services is provided everywhere needed in an area of interest, it is important to select an optimal place for the router and to configure the connected devices in a way that will give the best results.
With a proliferation of WiFi enabled devices being used in homes and as consumers depend more on more on being connected to the web, being able to assess and visualize a WiFi signal profile of an area of interest is a technical problem for which a technical solution is needed when positioning WiFi enabled devices for optimal performance.